James W. Lovell, retired president of Lewers and Cooke, a decorated World War II veteran and former Hula Bowl coach, touched the lives of hundreds of people in Hawai'i as a teacher, coach, battalion leader and businessman, said his son, Ray Yokoyama.

Lovell died Sunday in Honolulu at the age of 94.

Lovell helped to mold the lives of students, athletes and young soldiers, said Yokoyama, and people remembered him as generous and helpful.

Yokoyama recalled an encounter with an old man last year while pushing his father in a wheelchair. The man spotted them, waited, and called out his name.

"I'm sure my father didn't recognize him," Yokoyama said. "But this guy was so touched by him that now as an old man he still remembered my father."

Lovell was born Feb. 6, 1907 in Hastings, Neb.

After graduating in 1930 from the University of Nebraska, where he was inducted into its Athletic Hall of Fame, Lovell accepted a job in Hawai'i teaching mechanical drawing at Washington Intermediate School.

At Washington he coached football, basketball and track.

In 1933 Lovell transferred to Roosevelt High School, where he taught and coached for six years.

At the time of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Lovell was in the Hawai'i National Guard, which had been activated 15 months earlier.

He became the second in command of the 100th Battalion, leading a group of mostly Nisei men into battle in Italy.

In accounts of Lovell's war experience, members of the 100th said he was gutsy, took care of "da boys" and was always on the front lines with his troops.